Adding to the literature on factors driving corruption and bribery, this paper examines the effect of contestability in business operations on bribe solicitations. Contestability undermines bureaucratic rent-seeking potential and this paper tries to capture this empirically using cross-country...

Adding a new dimension to determinants of corruption, this paper examines the effectiveness of enforcement in reducing corruption. We compare the influences of latent enforcement (police, judicial, and prosecutorial employment) versus actual enforcement (conviction rates) and enforcing...

To synthesize the literature on determinants of the shadow economy, this paper uses three cross-national shadow economy measures and employs numerous determinants over hundreds of model combinations to identify robust determinants of the shadow economy and address modeling uncertainty. We find...

The formation and expansion of the European Union (EU) have attracted much attention. However, the impact on the level of corruption in a nation after joining the Union has not been formally studied. Any nation that joins the European Union potentially faces two different and opposite effects on...

Adding to the emerging body of research related to the current coronavirus crisis, this paper studies the impact of disease epidemics on the worldwide prevalence of the shadow or the underground economy. The informal sector undermines compliance with government regulations and lowers tax...

Using recent data on the unvaccinated across U.S. states, this paper focuses on the determinants of vaccine hesitancy related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that more prosperous states and states with more elderly and physicians have lower vaccine hesitancy. There was some evidence of...

This study uses a large firm-level data set covering more than 80 countries to explore the effects of firm-size, city-size, and government-size on perceived and experienced corruption. Four points summarize our main findings, which seem instructive and new. First, there is a broad structural...

Studying a relatively under-researched aspect in economics, this paper examines the nexus between corruption and academic freedom. Our main hypothesis is that greater corruption undermines academic freedom and we test this hypothesis using cross-national data for 104 nations over the years 2012...

We study determinants of COVID-19 vaccine donations from recipients' perspective, especially considering supply chain and institutional weakness (corruption) aspects. Results, based on data from more than 131 nations, show that strengthened supply chains reduced donations. The impacts of...

This paper adds some formal research to the success of ongoing efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic by examining the drivers of the administration and delivery efficiency of coronavirus vaccines. For this purpose, we use data from the 50 US states and place the formal analysis in the context...